


Dishonoured: Tobias' Tale

by KaptainFail



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 07:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12151371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaptainFail/pseuds/KaptainFail
Summary: The great city of Dunwall, seat of the Empire of the Isles, is disintegrating: plague taints the streets, rats run rampant through the sewers, the Empress is dead, her loyal protector accused of her murder. Corrupt officials accuse business rivals and old enemies of infection with the plague, destroying lives for their own benefit.When the dead counters come for the Whiting family in their ancestral mansion, fourteen year old Tobias Whiting is left for dead - a familiar story, just another victim of plague and corruption. But the Outsider has other ideas...





	Dishonoured: Tobias' Tale

 

_ It is time to wake up. Time to wake up - and time to run. _

 

**Chapter One: Dead Counters**

The Estate District was one of Dunwall’s crown jewels, the heart and soul of its high society. The Empress may live in opulence, but Dunwall Tower was as much a fortress as it was a palace - an imposing edifice, built to withstand war, fire, and plague. The Estate District was different: scattered among the common streets and buildings, the mansions and manors that made up the homes of the Gristol aristocracy looked like diamonds, scattered across a bed of earth. The Nobles of Gristol made their homes here. Even those noble families who lived on other parts of the island maintained expensive apartments - best to have an easy bed close to the seat of power, after all. The noble families of the Estate District were many, and moved in and out of favour: the decadent Boyles, with their parties; the divided Pendletons, fractious and bickering; the insular but artistic Chancels. And, of course, the Whiting family.

There were seven members of the family. Alfred was a born and bred noble, skilled in the games of politics, and known for his marksmanship and his rapidly growing collection of pistols, each custom-made and as much an art piece as a weapon. His wife, Ariana, was a lady of leisure, known for her impeccable dress sense and skill with a harp. Also in the house was Genevive Whiting, Alfred’s mother - a stooped, slow-moving battleaxe of a woman who, people said, would outlive everyone running on sheer bloody-mindedness. Then, there were the four Whiting children. The oldest, Marielle, was slim, slender, breathtakingly beautiful, and by nature intensely shy. She was known for her beauty, enough to inspire dozens of suitors - all of which she turned away.

The other three children - Tobias, Tamara, and little Harold - were too young to engage in the social dances of the nobility, and were not known for anything. Still, they lived a contented life, playing in and around the Whiting manor, occasionally terrorising the long-suffering servants with pranks. The servants, for their part, played the huffy, ill-tempered adults, and counted themselves lucky to be working with such a nice family, far away from the predations of the rat plague.

Then, the Dead Counters came.

They came bearing writs and papers, signed by Barrister Timsh and the Lord Regent Burrows themselves - writs that said the Whiting household was a plague pit, to be cleared immediately. The servants were herded away; Alfred and Ariana were dragged away into the streets, protesting loudly. Inside the house, on the upper floor, elderly Genevive and the four children looked out of the window, watching as their world was torn apart. The children were merely confused; but Genevive knew vultures when she saw them. She turned to her darling grandchildren, who had been the source of such great joy in her life, and said only one word:

“Run.”

 

And now, they ran. The streets of the Estate District were not as heavily barred and limited as some other places, but the guards were out in force. They moved mostly through the smaller side streets, away from the main boulevards. Tobias led the way, one of father’s new pistols in his leading hand. His other hand held tightly to Marielle’s, who in turn held Tamara’s, who dragged Harold behind her. They cross a small bridge over the river tributary known as the Serpentine, a strung out serpent of desperate children.

Ahead of them, Tobias heard the shouts of the guard. Had they been seen? No, no - they were round a corner in another street. They must be shouting about something else. Still, Tobias turned off into a smaller alley, dragging his siblings along behind him. Behind them, the echoes of the pursuing guards and the baying of the dogs bounced from wall to wall, filling up the street.

He was not familiar with these streets. He had only ever seen the broad main roads of the district; this confusing tangle of alleys and backroads was like a knot of string, clumped together and impossible to follow. His only thought was away: away from home (lost home), away from the sounds of pursuit, away from danger.

Suddenly, cruelly, the noise was ahead of him as well. Guards shouted, light casting their flickering shadows into the corner he was running towards. He stopped for a moment, confused - the other three children piled into him, knocking him from his feet. He barely noticed his cut and scraped hand as he stagger back up. They were in an alley - two ways in and out - and the noise was coming from both ends. To their sides, the boarded up doorways of ruined, abandoned buildings.

Tobias began to throw his weight against the weakest looking boards, scrabbling at the edges with his hands; his fingered quickly became bloodied and slick, but he did not feel the pain. Behind him, he could hear crying: Harold’s loud, unruly wailing, Tamara’s controlled sniffling. Only Marielle was silent; glancing over his shoulder, he could see tears silently streaming down her face.

He managed to create enough of a gap to slip through. “Get in, quickly!” he hissed. The others just stared at him, blankly. He grabbed Marielle arm and pulled her roughly towards the dirty, rotting boards. “In! Before they find us!” The movement pulled them out of their shock, and they scrambled into the abandoned building. As Tobias ducked in, he heard the fastest of the guards round the corner.

“They’re in the building!”

The children ran the only way they could: upwards, up shaky stairs, past sealed doors and barricaded landings. Below them, the sounds of guards and dogs, got louder. Tobias’ only hope was to get to the roof, to get across to the other buildings and away. So, despite their increasing fatigue, he dragged his siblings on.

And then, the broken door, leading onto the roof. And then - nothing.

Only a year ago, this would have been a decent escape root. But the buildings in front of the four were gone, replaced by one of the new Sokolov railways, along open-topped carriages carrying plague corpses trundled tirelessly. There might have been another building behind them, on the other side of the building, past the door they had gone through to get up here. But it was too late: the Watch had finally caught up with them.

 

They filed out onto the rooftop, four of them: the officer, a tall man with a sneering expression and a scar down one cheek, barely kept a long-snouted hound under control. One of the other guards was young and baggy - a formerly fat man who had lost a lot of weight quickly, and puffed from the exertion of the climb. The third was older and harsher, with a weathered, impassive face like the side of a cliff. The fourth was pale faced, his eyes red rimmed - Tobias thought he could see a spark of compassion in those eyes.

“There’s no need for all this, boy,” the officer said. “You’ve been caught fair and square. We just want to take you to be processed.” The Flooded District - that’s where the plague carriers were processed, were dumped in heaps and left to die. That’s what father had said, at any rate. Tobias did not feel like he wanted to be processed. He moved protectively between the men and his brother and sisters, brandishing his loaded pistol.

“You go away now,” he said with as much force as he could muster; his voice cracked under the strain. “I’ll shoot you, if you don’t.”

The officer smiled, his body relaxing - and the hound leapt free, bounding for Tobias’ throat.”Ripper!” The office shouted in surprise. The beast’s sharp snarl sent a shiver through Tobias’ body, causing his muscles to seize up - in his hand, the pistol suddenly bucked, the brutal shell catching the dog just below the throat as it leapt. Ripper fell to the ground, blood rapidly spreading about its body.

“Ripper!” The officer shouted again. Tobias desperately fumbled a bullet out of the pouch at his waist, trying to thumb it into the chamber with a shaking hand. Then the officer was in front of him, his hand grabbing a generous portion of the boy’s shirt front. His face, not pretty before, was now ugly with hate.

“You killed my dog.” The words were flat, devoid of emotion, cold with fury. Tobias’ mouth gaped open, trying to form words. Then he felt the blade of the knife slide into his gut - once, twice - on the third time, the guardsman buried it deep and left it there. Tobias’ body spasmed, his pistol hand lashing out, catching the guard, quite by chance, just below his eye; with a yelp, the guard raised his hand to cover his face, and let go. Tobias took a stumbling step backwards - and his foot found nothing. The roof reared up and disappeared, replaced by the flickering of passing windows.

The last thing he heard before the darkness was the sound of Marielle’s voice, shrieking his name, and the rumble of the plague carriages on the rails below.

 

This is not a story that should say,  _ and then, he woke up _ . Life, for some, is a long and lustrous adventure, filled with sensation and success. For most, it is short and brutal, a winding road of trials, punctuated by small joys and celebrations. And then, a sickness, or a knife, or - if one is truly fortunate - the passing of years takes that life away, and there is only darkness. This is neither fair nor just, it is simply the way things are.

But the Outsider is fickle, and can change the rules completely, if his interest is piqued.

 

And then, Tobias woke up. He was cold, but that is all he felt. There was no pain or fear, only a pervading sense of numbness. He felt he could not move, but this did not inspire fear in him. Then his hand began to itch: the back of his left, tingling like a rash or an insect bite. The itching turned to burning, and the burning raced through his body to his heart, which took a sudden, lurching jolt.

Then, because the Outsider is fickle, the pain returned.

Tobias gasped and rolled shakily over, flopping around on the cold stone cobbles like a landed fish. The knife was still lodged in his gut, and his shirt was damp and cold with his own blood, but he was alive. He did not consider this much of a blessing, all things considered. He looked at the back of his hand, struggling to focus his eyes through the pain and confusion: a black symbol now adorned his hand, still cooling from the red heat that had branded it there. It reminded him of the tattoos he used to see on the men who delivered food to the kitchens - black ink placed beneath the skin with a needle, he’d been told. But he did not remember any needles, only a knife.

Careful not to nudge the blade, he pushed himself up onto all floors, and slowly climbed to his feet, using a nearby wall for support. He was surrounded by walls - windowless cliffs of brick on all sides. Some sort of gap between buildings, maybe? The only clear way out was a fire stair made of rickety iron, so he began to climb slowly upwards. He could not tell what time of day it was: above was only a washed out, smudged blue filled with pervading light. He thought it might be twilight - dawn or dusk, the edge of the day.

When he reached the top of the stair, however, all his thoughts fled him. The roofs of the four buildings were the only things in the world. No, not the only things, he saw. In the distance, he could see - what,a boat? A boat. A whaling ship like the ones he used to watch from the attic window, floating in the endless blue air. Some way to the right of it, a small garden veranda drifted, bereft of a garden to decorate. It was the same all around him: objects out of place, drifting empty and disconnected, like pieces of the world that had been lost between the gaps of creation.

It was then that he felt the presence behind him, and turned. He did not look particularly strange, this man: middling in height, with pale skin and dark hair, he drifted about a foot off the floor. Behind him, and endless trail of dust stretched away, as if it were being blown off him by some wind only he could feel. The most inhuman aspect of him was his eyes: two pits of blackness, deeper than night, blacker than death, brighter than pain. The power of his presence drove Tobias to his knees.

“It is strange, is it not? The world is ending, and yet life goes on: babes are born, lovers marry, and boys become men. But what of you, Tobias? So far as anyone living knows, you are a dead boy. Only you know that you are a living man - but what sort of man?”

Tobias looked up into the pale face, its expression distant and disinterested, and the back of his hand began to itch again. Looking down, he saw that the symbol was glowing: not the dull red of a lantern light shining through flesh, but a bright, impossible white, as if liquid light had been placed under his skin instead of ink.

“When you were young”, the Outsider continued, “your nursemaid told you stories to lull you to sleep - tales of impossible men and unlikely deeds. She told you of the forces that move within your world, which men call magic. Through my Mark, you now control these forces. Hundreds have sought this power, and thousands have died for it. Now, you possess it. What you do with it is in your hands. I will be watching you with interest.”

Then, he dissolved, disintegrating into the dust that flowed away in the endless winds of the Void. He was not the only thing: the buildings began to crumble away into nothing as well, and Tobias quickly found himself falling down through torrents of dust, dust that choked and blinded him, until he fell back into darkness.

 

When Tobias woke again, he was cold, and hungry, and in pain: he ached all over, every inch of his flesh and muscle throbbing with a deep, constant hurt. But he was alive.

He pulled himself to his feet, unsteadily: the floor was not stone or wood, but flesh - a mountainous pile of dead bodies, bearing the marks of the plague. But the plague did not kill them, it seemed: each also bore a death wound by blade or bullet. The work of the guard, the Overseers, and the Dead Counters.

Tobias’ right foot slipped, and he found himself tumbling down, sliding over the clammy flesh of the dead until he hit cold, brackish water. Two other objects landed in the water beside him: his father’s pistol, empty of bullets; and the guardsman’s razor-sharp knife, still stained with his own blood. He picked them up, and began to walk.

 

 

**Chapter Two: The Mark**

It had been almost a week since he awoke, lying on a bed of corpses, deep in the heart of the Flooded District. He could not remember the full details of how he had walked, exhausted in body and mind, through the silent streets of that province of the dead, narrowly avoiding the rats and the weepers - those poor, lost souls who minds had been taken by the plague.

But he had escaped, hiding in the empty carriage of a plague cart as it rumbled on its rails, back into the city. When it had stopped at a crossing of the rails to allow another carriage to go by, he had climbed clumsily out, dropping off the rails onto the roof of a shop. There, he had crawled in through a window into the abandoned upper floor, and slept.

That first night, sleeping in the apartment above the shop, Tobias had been haunted by strange dreams. When he awoke, he could not remember most of them; the only things that lingered were strange and nonsense words. These words rang in his head for days afterwards, humming and thrumming, pregnant with power - like a swear word, newly learned by a child.

And then, on the second day, he said them.

_ The forces which men call magic _ , the Outsider had said. He had not been lying. Two syllables, and Tobias  _ moved _ ; a channel opened up in the world, a distance of ten, twenty yards that he could move in a single step. It was like a corridor that only he could see. Suddenly, he could move from rooftop to rooftop, from street level to well above in a heartbeat. Nor was this the only gift that the Outsider’s Mark gave him.

On the fourth day, he got overconfident. He took that channel onto a rooftop across the way, heading for a door down into the building so that he could scavenge. He opened it, and the weeper was on top of him, slamming him backwards with its body, trembling, clumsy hands gripping the tattered remains of his shirt and his throat; Tobias kicked out and stumbled backwards, the weeper’s hands ripping the collar from his already dirty and dishevelled shirt. Freed, Tobias fell backwards, his back slamming into the weakened roof, the rotting timbers of which gave way under the sudden shock. He landed on a rusting bed, on top of a corpse, and the floor gave way again, dropping him down another level. On the floor below Tobias desperately shoved the dead man whose bed he now shared, sending it rolling off the stained mattress; Tobias rolled the other way, knocking his head on the edge of a table as he went. Darkness descended for a few moments, perhaps a minute.

When he came to, his ears were filled with a horrible gnashing, tearing, crunching sound. He opened his eyes, blinking multicoloured spots from his vision: less than a yard away, the lost soul whose eternal slumber had been so rudely interrupted was being torn apart by a swarm of rats, their hungry teeth shredding cloth, flesh, muscle, even bone with ease. Of the weeper, there was no sign.

Tobias panicked, roll up to his hands and knees and backing away from the grisly feast. Beneath his hand, there was cold, rotted wood, broken plaster, shards of glass, and  - then nothing. He went tumbling backwards again, falling to ground floor, finally, surrounded by a cloud of dust.

When the dust cleared and his fit of coughing abated, he looked around him; dozens of rats looked back, their blank, black eyes staring. Tobias froze, afraid any movement would bring them to him. Something tickled his hand and he jerked, scrabbling away - away from what? Away from a rat, bigger than the rest and with moon-white fur, but towards more rats. The crowd parted before him, unafraid, calm.

It had taken him most of ten minutes to again work up the courage to move. Around him, the rats milled. Some even came up and snuffled at his shoes, at his bloodied hands. But they did not bite. Eventually, he had climbed unsteadily to his feet, and left. The rats followed him to the door, like a host escorting its guest out after a dinner engagement.

That had been a week ago.

 

The city had become timeless. In the districts that were still civilised - the Estates District, the Abbey, and others - life continued as normal, albeit behind thick walls of wood and iron. Shops opened and closed on schedule, the streets were patrolled, business churned on. But in an increasing number of districts, time had fallen away with the other trappings of civilisation. There were no shops or carriages, no business - only rats, and weepers, and corpses, and - for those few who did not fall into one of the first three categories - hard-won survival. The civilised ticking of clocks had been abandoned: there was only day and night.

This was Tobias’ world now. He had found new clothes - or old clothes, but better than his blood stained ones: workman’s boots, padded with multiple pairs of socks. Thick trousers, a shirt four sizes too big, but gathered and held tight by a washing peg. Also, a jacket, sized oddly well for him, found in an old tailoring store. He kept on him, at all times, three things: his father’s pistol, still bereft of a bullet; the guardsman’s knife, whose blade now seemed to be permanently stained with a stain that had sunk into the metal, and would not come off no matter how much he rinsed it clean; and the key to his family home, although it was clear across the other side of the city now.

He had made his home on the top floor of a rather grand townhouse. The lower floors were often haunted by weepers, but the stairs had collapsed, protecting the upper floors. A nimble, daring young man could make his way up via the air ducts and drainage pipes that lined the outside of the building. That top floor was starting to look quite homey now, for Tobias gradually filled it with things he found on his scavenger hunts: a bronze statuette of a whale, several bottles of expensive alcohol (which Tobias rarely touched, for they made him woozy), a creased but carefully presented portrait of a pretty lady in a state of relative undress, the gently curve of her back and the coquettish way she looked back over her shoulder conjuring in him strange but not unpleasant feelings. One corner was dedicated to the food that he scavenged; day by day, there was less fresh fruit, and more tinned fish.

A curious man might wonder how a boy used to a life of ease could survive in such an environment. In truth, Tobias would be dead several times over, were it not for the Mark.

He had only one friend: Mooney, a large, white rat who had moved into his new home some three days after him. At first, Tobias had been unwelcoming, to say the least. But, the creature’s lack of fear as the boy had raised his knife up had made him pause. Mooney was big, and smart, and followed Tobias’ orders; a gift of the Mark, he had discovered, for all rats seemed to go where he directed, at least as much as they could. Still, he had someone to talk to, someone who he could convince himself understood him when he did, and that was enough.

 

Tobias was not alone in this district, he knew. He had often seen others - thugs of some kind, as far as he could tell - in the distance. They fought petty wars over seemingly nothing, killing each other with primitive weapons. He stayed away from them, and they mostly stayed away from his home, as well - most of the district’s weepers seem to congregate around there.

Tonight, however, Tobias had journeyed beyond his usual patch; the shops and houses around him had little aside from tinned fish, and while he liked fish, he also liked things that were not fish. Right now, he would like anything that was not fish for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Even Mooney was going off fish.

He crept across the rooftop, ducking from the shadow of a doorway to the darkness cast by the arch of the next roof over. All seemed quiet. He could hear the faint murmur of distant voices, but those were probably on the street, and people had enough problems around them that they did not look up. Keeping low, he moved to the edge and looked over - nothing. Time to roll the dice - it was now or never.

He murmured the words under his breath -  _ SOH, THTA _ \- and channeled to the next rooftop, ducking immediately behind a chimney stack. Nothing.

So it went. He channeled a couple more times, popping from rooftop to rooftop until he found a conveniently open door; then, he headed down. The building was a sorry state; some had panicked, barely staying to empty out their cupboard before fleeing; others had holed themselves up, barricading doors in hopes that the plague would blow over - the stench of corpses permeated these apartments. Tobias found mouldy bread, soft pears and slowly liquefying apples. But it was better than nothing, and better than fish.

It happened on the way back. Tobias checked over the lip of a rooftop and saw a figure below him. Not one of the usual thugs, this man was dressed in a stained and tattered guardsman’s uniform, complete with sword and pistol. He unlocked the door of a building and, before going inside, turned and looked around. Tobias knew that face.

_ They had filed out onto the rooftop, four of them: the officer, a tall man with a sneering expression and a scar down one cheek, barely keeping a long-snouted hound under control. One of the other guards had been young and baggy - a formerly fat man who had lost a lot of weight quickly. The third had been older and harsher, with a weathered, impassive face like the side of a cliff. The fourth had been pale faced, his eyes red rimmed. And Tobias had thought he could see a spark of compassion in those eyes. _

That was him - the fourth guard, with the kind eyes, although he looked thinner, more weary. Satisfied that he was unobserved, he went inside. Tobias settled down, his back to the lip of the roof. What was the man doing here? Thugs Tobias had seen, but he had set eyes on none of the city watch since he awoke in the Flooded District; this place had been abandoned by civilisation. And he did not look like he was on patrol, he looked like Tobias had felt: hunted, doomed.

Presently, it got dark, and Tobias resolved to ask the man some questions. He circled the building, channeling from rooftop to rooftop, until he saw light: dim, flickering candlelight from around the edges of a balcony door on the second floor. He would go in when it got dark.

 

Rhoddrey Murlowe was, by nature, a good man. His father had not been, had in fact been a lifelong criminal, philanderer, and wife beater. When the man had finally just not come back one night, no-one was sad, although Rhoddrey’s mother - a kindly, put-upon woman who worked as a washer - feared they would not have enough money to keep the house. Presently, a member of the city watch named Archibald had begun to visit, bringing small gifts and enough money to help the young woman and her child.

Rhoddrey had loved Archibald in a way he had never loved his father. A man of few words, the guardsman was possessed of a simple kindness, firm morality, and seemingly endless patience with the troubled boy. No-one was surprised when, at age sixteen. Rhoddrey had asked to join the watch. He was good at it. He carried on the wisdom and compassion of his step-father, and became well liked among the watch. He even rose to the rank of Sergeant - not a spectacular rank, but respectable for a common man of no noble blood.

Then, the world had gone mad. The rat plague came, wiping out hundreds, and then thousands; Rhoddrey’s beloved wife, Petunia, had died early and taken their unborn child with her. Then, the Empress had been assassinated, apparently by her own bodyguard, and the Princess had disappeared. The newly appointed Lord Regent had issued decrees that plague victims should be treated like the worse kind of criminal. The streets became filled with corpses, rats, and the deadly Sokolov defence technologies that could reduce a man to ash in the blink of an eye. The watch grew bigger from necessity, and attracted the worst kind of people. Rhoddrey did not begrudge those men who joined just for the ration of elixir to stave off the plague. But he loathed the other ones, the thugs who had joined for a taste of power over their suffering neighbours. Then the Regent had ordered the creation of a new rank - the Watch Lower Guard - to be filled by recruits from the prisons. Together, the guard sealed plague victims away to their doom, brutalised the general populace, and destroyed the lives of people whose only crime was to own something that someone else wanted.

Rhoddrey was entirely unsurprised when he noticed his hair thinning and the skin of his chest turning yellow. The plague was, of course, the final punchline to the jest that his life had become. But he would be damned if he let his life be ended by the abysmal excuses for guards that surrounded him. So, after a shift, he paid off one of the guards to let him through a gate (another thing that would never have happened in the old days), and walked off into the city, to find a place to die.

And now, he woke with a knife at his throat.

 

Tobias had quietly opened the door, and carefully moved across the small room. He gently picked up the man’s gun, which lay on the table beside his bed, and put it on the small desk by the window, well out of arm’s reach. Then, he pressed the flat of his cold steel knife against the man’s throat. His eyes jerked open.

“Don’t move, or I’ll cut,” Tobias said. He even managed to keep his voice from cracking this time.

“You don’t want to do that, boy.”

Tobias saw recognition in the man’s eyes - recognition, sadness, and the same compassion as before. What he did not see was fear. He pressed the knife down, just enough that one edge nicked the flesh of his thin neck. “Why?”

“Because once you kill a man, you’re a man that killed a man. There’s no going back from that.” The boy hesitated… the man’s arm came up, slamming into the side of Tobias’ head. The world went dark once again.

 

Rhoddrey considered the boy, lying peacefully on his bed. He looked thinner than the old guard remembered, but then again, wasn’t everyone? Everyone thinner, and poorer, and more desperate than they used to be. It was the product of these desperate, plague-addled times. Still, he did not look like he was starving. His body seemed strong, and muscles were developing where there used to be the soft flesh of the aristocracy. He had a strange mark on his hand, now, too - a gang tattoo, perhaps? Rhoddrey hoped the boy had not come all this way, only to end up as some gang slave.

At first, he had been sure he was dreaming. It was impossible: that the Whiting boy could survive a gut wound, a fall from a roof into a moving cart, a trip to the Flooded District - and who knew what else besides. But the longer he went without waking (and the more his chest hurt, as it always did these days), the more convinced he was that this was no dream. The had really survived, and was really here. Here to kill him, in fact.

Rhoddrey had never been the target of such an attack before. Oh, he had faced down street thugs, thieves, criminals, even murderers - but always as a member of the watch. They fought against the uniform, not the man. Now, for the first time, he felt like he might deserve the violent death that someone else intended for him.

Presently, Tobias began to stir. From stirring, he sat bolt upright, looking around wildly; his hands scrabbled at his belt, where Rhoddrey guessed the knife and pistol would usually be. Then his wandering eyes fell upon the man in the chair, lit by the dim light of the whale-oil lamp, and he fell still, eyes darting, like a cornered rat.

“I’ve no interest in hurting you,” Rhoddrey said. “Though I guess you can’t say the same.” The boy didn’t reply. Well, time to earn some trust, the guardsman thought. He tossed the weapons - empty pistol and blood-soaked knife - onto the floor near the bed. The boy slowly, carefully, stooped to pick them up; his eyes never left Rhoddrey’s face.

“Why would you give me back the weapons to kill you?” he asked. Suspicion lit his eyes, twisted his face.

“Because I’m too old and tired - and sick - to fight. Because I reckon I deserve a little reckoning. Anyway, what else am I to do? Kill you, make sure you can’t come back to hurt me? I’m many things, boy, but a cold-blooded killer I ain’t.”

“You killed me,” Tobias spat.

“My officer tried to kill you,” Rhoddrey countered, “something I’d have tried to stop, had I had the chance. And it looks like he didn’t manage it, neither.”

“Then you killed my parents! And Marielle, Tamara, Harold - little Harold.” Rhoddrey watched the boy’s knuckles turn white around the hilt of the knife, his shout bouncing wildly from the walls of the room. He could not tell if the boy was holding back tears or violence. Probably both, and fair enough at that, he thought. He leaned forward, talking in a low, earnest voice.

“In the first place,” he said, “your Ma and Pa were writ up for plague victims by the Barrister, and there’s nought I can do about that. And in the second, in fact, your sisters and brother aren’t dead.”

“Not - not dead?” Hope warred with suspicion in the boy’s face. “What do you mean, not dead?”

“I mean, not dead. Though I’m not sure that wouldn’t be better.”

Tobias pointed the knife at him - not a direct threat, not yet, but a fair warning. “If they’re not dead, where are they?”

Rhoddrey sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry, boy, I can’t tell you that. My officer took them off somewhere - some private work to put coin in his pocket, I got the impression. But he took them alive, that I do know.”

“And… father Mother?” Hope lit his eyes.

Rhoddrey considered lying, then. Considered some grand deception, a fairy tale to keep the kid happy, maybe even a little sane. But no - he deserved the truth. So he shook his head. “I’m sorry, boy. Carted off to the Flooded District, and - ain’t no-one comes back from that. If they survived the trip they’ll be… just let them go.”

Tobias’ face fell. Mother and Father - dead. And grandmother with them, no doubt. The house was gone, the staff dead or scattered. But… his three siblings, they were alive somewhere. Beautiful, popular Marielle, impetuous Tamara, inquisitive Harold. The last of his family.

Tobias looked up. He did not know if he could trust the old guardsman, the man who had stood by as his life was destroyed. But he seemed somehow sad, somehow trustworthy, and certainly sick - the room was already beginning to smell like a weeper’s den. Either way, he didn’t have any better alternative right now.

“If they’re not dead, and you don’t know where they are, then how do I find them?”

The watchman’s eyes were dark, but not unkind. He seem to mull this question over for some time before answering. Finally, he said: “My officer. My old officer, anyhow - he’ll know where they went, if not where they are right now.”

“How do I find him, then?”

“He’s still on duty in the Estate district. Got himself a nice comfortable job as a shift commander there - no weepers to deal with, little crime. Just finely dressed nobility to tip his hat to. His name’s Asper Mandelton - keeps a fine room in the Tolton Street barracks. Creep in while he’s out, you might find some clue in his room.” Tobias stood up and started for the door, but paused when the man spoke. “Boy - be careful. Asper’s not a nice man. He won’t stop to think before killing you. It’d be wise to be a mite fearful of him.”

Tobias opened the door. “I’m not afraid. But he should be.  _ SOH-THTA. _ ” And he was gone, vanishing into the air, seeming to shrink to an infinitesimal point around the level of his navel before winking out completely. Rhoddrey swore; what had the boy gotten himself into? He closed the door and wrapped a blanket around himself, and sat long into the night, trying not to think about the possibility that the right question might instead be,  _ what have we created? _

****

**Chapter Three: Bloody Knife**

A little over twelve hours later, Tobias crouched on the rooftops of the Estate District. Before him, across one street and a stretch of well-manicured green, the Whiting Manor stood. The windows were boarded up, the front door blocked by one of those big, solid steel barriers, designed more to keep any weepers in than invaders out. Were some of the serving staff still in there, squatting among the ruins of their old lives, unable to find work elsewhere for fear that they were carrying the plague?

Tobias turned his eyes way. He was not here to see his old home, to look to his past. He was here to see to his future. Down and to his right, a pair of guards were strolling, heading back towards home for the night, their shift over. Tobias shadowed them, channelling from one rooftop to the next, moving on soft feet and keeping to the shadows. Soon, the last dregs of sunlight would drain from the world, plunging him into the same night that guards on the overshadowed streets below walked in. No matter; years ago, he had been afraid of the dark. Now, he had seen so much worse.

Eventually, the guards steady pace brought them home. The Estate District barracks of the city watch was slotted neatly between two tall, ornate apartment buildings. It was set back a way, the front yard neatly maintained and obscured from the street by a wrought iron fence, wrapped around with carefully sculpted hedges. The twos guardsmen greeted three more lingering in the yard; Tobias could see the shadows of others moving in the windows. He sat down, setting his back against a chimney stack. Behind him, the last of the day’s light drained out of a bloody orange sky. Hidden in the shadows, he waited.

In less than an hour, he was rewarded.  _ He _ came, strolling along the street, two other watchmen flanking him. The watch captain - Asper Mandelton, failed murderer and child kidnapper - headed inside, saluted neated by every guard he passed. Some time after, the steady light of an oil lamp flickered on in the top-most windows, and a balcony door opened. Mandelton, bereft of his overcoat, shirt tails flapping, left his boots to air, and closed the door behind him.

Tobias waited for the light to dim and fade out, then got to his feet. His skin was cold, but a red-hot core of anger kept him warm. Asper Mandelton would be made to pay. He channelled down two rooftops, and across, popping from balcony balcony, and along down the roofs to the top of the barracks building. Several hours of watching had told him that no guardsmen patrolled up here; this would be easy.

He eased Mandelton’s door open, slipping through the narrow gap and closing the door behind him. Inside was darkness; the near moonless night outside projected dull outlines of the windows on the floor, but the room was otherwise black as pitch. Tobias eased forward, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He crept across the soft carpet towards a broad, blocky shape that could only be a bed, the knife in his hand.

Then, the light came back, momentarily blinding him: he threw one hand across his eyes, blocking out the light, swinging wildly with his knife hand. But the blow came not from in front of him - it came from behind and to the right, a solid fist strike to the side of the head that sent the boy sprawling, stars flashing behind his eyes. A second blow to the stomach bent his wiry frame double, stealing the breath from his lungs and the strength from his muscles.

He could only weakly struggle as he was lifted up, put into a chair, and tied - a belt around his wrists behind the chair’s back, another two to secure his ankles to the chair legs. When he managed to shake the fuzziness from his mind and the lights from his eyes, he found his chin was being held. The lantern light was bright, now, and the cruel guard captain - Apser Mandelton - was staring down into his face.

“Well, now.” The man grinned. “This is a turn up, isn’t it? Whiting, right?” Tobias just stared at him, paralyzed by an equal mix of fear and hate. “I thought I stabbed you.” Rough hands ripped open the fabric of his shirt, buttons popping onto the floor, and Asper pulled the lantern closer; the puckered flesh of Tobias’ scar was revealed in the harsh, blue-white light. “Recover fast, don’t you? And what were you meaning to do in my room, with this?” He picked up the knife. “Looking for a little revenge? Well, looks like it ain’t your day.”

“I’ll tell everyone!” The words burst out of Tobias’ mouth before he could stop them. “I’ll tell everyone what you did!”

Asper laughed. “Tell who? And tell them what? That I chased a bunch of snot-nosed kids on the run from the law? That one of them pulled a pistol on me, and I had to defend myself with a knife?” He shrugged. “Already reported it, kid.” Tobias surged forward suddenly, trying to break his way out of thick leather belts that tied him down, but it was no use. The man sighed. “Well, looks like we got another criminal plague victim. I’ll go get the dead counters.”

“I’m not - you can’t!”

“Watch me.” And Asper left the room.

 

Tobias struggled - fruitlessly. The wide leather belts held fast. He could hear the black-hearted man shouting as he went down the stairs; no doubt he’d be back within minutes with a handful of guards. He had to break free before then. He had to, or he likely wouldn’t get another chance. Time for a different trick, he thought. He breathed in, drawing air in through his clenched teeth. “ _ SOH-THTA!” _ He shifted slightly, but the channel did not open - the straps held him down. He doubled his efforts to pull free, bruising his wrists on the weathered leather.

And then he heard it - a faint scrabbling sound, like strong teeth gnawing wood. He looked around, finally locating the noise: under Asper’s bed. “Hey,” he said in a strained whisper. The noise stopped. “Come out from there.” A moment, and then it poked its head out from the shadows. The rat was not big - not the impressive size of those rats that carried the plague - but it looked healthy enough. No doubt it survived on the food that Asper dropped from his plate. “Come here. Quickly!” The rodent scampered over to him, stopped at his feet, and tilted its head quizzically upwards, gazing at the boy with its dark eyes. As best as possible, Tobias twitched his right leg, to get its attention. “Chew through the belt.” The rat looked quizzically at down at his ankle. “Chew it! Get me free!” The rodent went to work with its teeth.

It did not take long, with the rat’s sharp teeth and Tobias straining against the leather. Then he directed the creature to his other leg. His wrists, of course, were the problem - the creature could not rightly scrabble up the chair leg and get a firm enough footing to chew through. So, Tobias rocked his chair, tipping it over on its side; the heavy back landed on his right arm, bruising it. He gritted his teeth, and waited for the rat to do its work. Below, he could hear voices - approaching voices, accompanied by boots on the stairs.

“Faster, faster,” he whispered under his breath. The boots were just beyond the door when, at last, his hands came free on their binding. Barely pausing to draw breath, Tobias channeled to the balcony door, and pushed his way through. He hit the railings of the balcony and rebounded, spinning around and channelling up to the roof, just as he heard the guards cursing below him. Boots thudded into the room and onto the balcony, but Tobias flattened himself against the roof, hardly daring the breathe. Below him, the guards milled around.

 

Asper Mandelton was not, by nature, a particularly good man. He was the son of a relatively minor noble - the third son, to be precise, and therefore set to inherit nothing. His childhood had been a study in contrasts: to the serving staff, his every request was, of course, a matter of almost divine mandate. He became the terror of the household almost as soon as he could talk, demanding his every whim fulfilled, and making up numerous whims just to enjoy the power he wielded over others. To his family, however, he was little more than a nuisance. His father already had two strapping sons, and desired no more children, and so ignored him; his mother, never in good health, never recovered from his birth, and died when he was four, thereby abandoning him; his two brothers were considerably older than him, and were not held at bay by the affection of their parents, and so tormented him.

His father may not have had time to raise him, but he was not a man to shirk his duties to his blood. When Asper had come of age, his father had arranged for him a fine commission in the city watch, even going so far as to guarantee him a decent posting in Dunwall itself - somewhere comfortable, safe, and easy, like the Estate District. Asper, for his part, was quite happy with the arrangement. He got a neat uniform, cut to accentuate his rakish figure; he got power and respect, and a decent wage to subsidise his monthly stipend from the family fortune - more than enough to keep him in liquor, women, and whatever other entertainments took his fancy in his off-duty hours.

When the plague had come, his priorities had changed somewhat. After his father and brothers died, and his estate was taken by the likes of the corrupt Barrister Timsh and his ilk, he had begun to focus on making enough coin to take a ship out of the city, somewhere he could start a new life for himself.

After the assassination of the Empress, however, he slowly began to realise his shortsightedness. His position in the Watch guaranteed him a reliable ration of elixir to protect him from the plague. Meanwhile, he had ample opportunity to harvest wealth from the increasingly abandoned city, especially with the dead counters clearing out one noble estate after another. He had gathered quite a small fortune, in fact. When the plague was resolved, he would retire early and set himself up somewhere; if the Empire collapsed around him, he had more than enough coin to ensure him a seat on the last boat out. In the grand scheme of Asper’s life, the Whiting children had been just four more lives crushed under heel and the behest of his paymasters. He had already forgotten about Tobias, the boy who had killed his hound and died for his trouble.

Then the boy came back with a knife. Had Asper made it to his bed, and not been dozing in the chain by the window, behind the door the boy entered, he might even had died. But the Outsider looks after his own, as his father used to say. He had tied to boy up and gone to get the dead counters, no doubt in his mind that if the boy wasn’t a plague carrier, he could persuade them to see things his way regardless.

_ Stupid _ , he reflected as he stood on the empty balcony, the stained knife in his hand. He should have killed the brat when he had the chance. Stupid, arrogant, prideful Asper. Still… what could the boy actually do? He couldn’t report Asper to any of his superiors - he had not been lying about the report he’d put in after the incident. But if the kid raised any questions about where his two lovely sisters and precocious little brother had gone, well - questions might be asked.

Asper did not sleep well that night - not until after half a bottle of Gristol cider and the attentions of a very amiable young lady, at any rate. He spent much of the next day thinking over how he would deal with the situation, how he would track the boy down and silence him. His second, a solid and worldly Sergeant named Pames, commented on his distracted air, and got cursed over for his trouble. Who would the boy go to? What could he say? What if he came back? What if he got a pistol, instead of a knife? Or poison? He tried to get these questions straight in his mind as he half-heartedly inspected the assembled ranks of the watch.

That night, however, he discovered that he did not need to worry about finding the boy; Tobias came back on his own.

 

Asper awoke from the sound sleep to the sound of a loud clatter. The woman sharing his bed that night - Cynthia? Clara? It ended with an ‘a’, he was sure - stirred sleepily beside him. Of more concern, however, was the boy: halfway across the room, next to the open door, the smashed lantern still rocking on the floor at his feet. Seeing him awake, Tobias turned and darted back through the door.

With an oath, Asper scrambled out of bed, casting both the empty bottles and his female companion to the floor. He stumbled out onto the suddenly empty balcony, and looked around. A noise behind and above him made him turn - the boy was just pulling himself up over the lip. With a curse, the watchman grabbed his trousers and weapon belt, complete with sword, pistol, and newly returned dagger. Better to leave the other guards out of this one, yes. Better to deal with the boy quietly. He went out on the balcony, and climbed up.

The boy was already on the neighbouring roof; a plank of wood had been set down unsteadily between the two buildings, acting as a makeshift bridge - so that was how the boy had got down onto his balcony, Asper thought. He should have had the roof checked. Foolish, foolish Asper. Well, he’d put this troublesome boy to rest - permanently this time.

He pursued Tobias across rooftop after rooftop. Any were linked by planks or pipes, laid down to as walkways; in some places, he had to make jumps between balconies, or shimmy along the unsteady new ventilation shafts bolted to the crumbling brickwork of the old buildings. He tried to get a shot or two off, to take the boy out from a distance, but could never get a clear shot: he was always fifteen or twenty yards away, just ducking around a corner, under a pipe, or behind a chimney stack. Still, the large but fitter watchman kept pace, and slowly began to narrow the distance.

He finally caught up on the roof of an old and crumbling mercantile on the edge of the district. The boy was almost all the way across already, and about to duck through a ruined doorway - no time to try a pistol shot. With all of his strength, Asper leapt, one hand outstretched to make a grab for the kid’s clothes of leg. He landed in a full body slam on the rotten timbers of the floor. The floor promptly gave way, dropping the both of them down.

The watchman was momentarily blinded by dust and pain - nothing broken, he thought, just some fairly hefty bruising. The boy would pay for each bruise, he swore. When he managed to clear the dust from his eyes, however, he saw something that requires more immediate attention: rats.

There were dozens of them. They mostly congregated at the other end of the large, empty room, but even now were moving towards the fresh meat. Looking around, he saw that he was in a dead-end corner of the room. It may once have been a meat locker, but the broken roof - more broken, now - left it open to the elements. There was only one feature: an unsteady looking chair. Asper staggered to his feet and climbed on, rising above the level of the deadly swarm as the rodents broke like a wave over the boy’s body.

 

It had taken Tobias most of the day to set up. It was mid-afternoon by the time he found the perfect place: an abandoned butchery store, with the ground-level meat locker whose roof was all but destroyed. Even under his weight it groaned, and one of the boards cracked easily, rotten through from exposure to the damp. Then he had gone about luring in the rats - not difficult, since they seemed to obey his every word. He had then built a small blockade to seal the door, to discourage them from attempting to leave. The chair he had retrieved from behind the shop front’s own counter.

The rest of the afternoon and the first part of night had been spent setting up the chase. He had mapped out the route carefully in his head, placing planks and pipes across the widest gaps that someone without his gifts - without the Mark - could not cross. The plan, of course, had depended on being able to persuade the watch captain to come after him alone. He had broken for food just after sundown, filling up on bread and cheese stolen from the guards, and spent over an hour thinking of clever taunts, insults, and warnings to get the watch captain alone. In the end, he didn’t have to say anything: Mandelton had chased him, alone, like a hound haring after a rabbit. He had taken care not to move too far ahead, only channelling when he was sure the man couldn’t see him. There had been a couple of close shots - pistol caps shattering stone close by - but slowly, carefully, he had led Asper round to his ambush.

Tobias rose up now, shrugging the rats with their scrabbling paws off him. They swarmed around the legs of the chair, but the guardsman was safe - for now. His pistol lay several feet from him, dropped in the fall. Tobias calmly walked over and picked it up; the rats obediently parted wherever his feet landed. Asper’s eyes bulged almost out of his head. “What are you?”

Tobias had put some thought into this conversation, as well. “I’m a dead boy. A boy you killed.”

Asper looked desperately around him. “Help!” he called out. Tobias darted forward, throwing the weight of his body into the man, toppling him from the chair into the swarm. The rats immediately covered him, going in with teeth and claw…

“Stop!” Tobias shouted. The rats milled in confusion for a moment, then obediently drew back. Asper sat up, dragging himself backwards so that his back was set against the wall. He was already bleeding from a host of small wounds. He was panting, spittle running down his chin in his panic.

“What -”

Tobias cut across the older man. “My sisters and brother - Marielle, Tamara, Harold. Where are they?”

Asper gasped and gaped, gulping down air like a fish. Tobias could see his mind working as he looked around for some escape route. Finding none, he dragged his eyes back to the boy. “Okay. Alright. Okay - they’re safe. You don’t need to - they’re fine, alive and - “

“I know they’re alive!” Tobias hated the way his voice cracked at such a volume but he balled his fists and moved on, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “I know they’re alive. I know you sold them. Where?”

“No!” Asper babbled desperately. “Not sold, not - I just - they gave me money to send them - someplace safe.”

Tobias took a threatening step forward; around his feet, the rats shrieked and chittered. “Where?!”

“The oldest, the girl -”

“Marielle!”

“Yeah - yes. I - there was a nobleman - Tibalt, Marsden Tibalt. He paid me to bring the girl to him. She’s safe!” Marsden Tibalt - one of Marielle’s many suitors - was an odious noble born, almost twice her age. The Tibalt manor was not so far from what had once been the Whiting house.

“What about Tamara? Harold?”

“Tamara - the girl right?” Asper ran his hand nervously through his hair, unwittingly smearing his own blood through it. “I… there’s a house - a home for children without parents.” The man winced as Tobias took another step forward, fists clenching with anger. “Lady Stuttle’s!” he said quickly. “She’s at Lady Stuttle’s.”

That would be enough information. “And Harold?” Here, Asper paused, licking his lips nervously. His eyes darted back around the room, looking for some means of escape. “Where is he?!” Tobias shouted. He no longer cared about his voice cracking.

The sudden shout made Mandelton jump, and dragged his eyes back to the boy. “He - I - the Overseers. The Overseers took him. He’s - he’s marked for the Trials of Aptitude. The Overseers paid me to make sure he got to them, instead of the Flooded District.”

“Where?!” Tobias shouted again.

“I don’t know! But - Markus. The man I dealt with, called himself Overseer Markus. He had me take the boy down to Holger Square, one of the side buildings. That’s all I know, I swear!”

Tobias looked down at the man. He had thought about many endings to this scenario, where he beat Asper in a fair fight, or pushed him to his death, or even talked him into taking his own life. But he’d never pictured the man looking so… pathetic. So afraid. This was the man who had taken his siblings, who had tried to kill him - who ruined his life.

“What - what now, boy?” Asper asked.

Tobias clenched his fists again, the Mark on his hand flaring with a dull light. “You get what you deserve.”

And the rats swarmed.


End file.
